oul for the freedom of the night.

[Illustration]

THE WORST EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE

[Illustration]

THE WORST EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE

Reader, if by fortunate chance you have a son of tender years--the age is
best from the sixth to the eleventh summer--or in lieu of a son, a nephew,
only a few years in pants--mere shoots of nether garments not yet
descending to the knees--doubtless, if such fortunate chance be yours, you
went on one or more occasions last summer to a circus.

If the true holiday spirit be in you--and you be of other sort, I'll not
chronicle you--you will have come early to the scene for a just
examination of what mysteries and excitements are set forth in the
side-shows. Now if you be a man of humane reasoning, you will stand
lightly on your legs, alert to be pulled this way or that as the nepotic
wish shall direct, whether it be to the fat woman's booth or to the
platform where the thin man sits with legs entwined behind his neck, in
delightful promise of what joy awaits you when you have dropped your
nickel in the box and gone inside. To draw your steps, it is the showman's
privilege to make what blare he please upon the sidewalk; to puff his
cheeks with robustious announcement.

If by further fortunate chance, you are addicted, let us say, in the
quieter hours of winter, to writing of any kind--and for your joy, I pray
that this be so, whether this writing be in massive volumes, or obscure
and unpublished beyond its demerit--if such has been your addiction, you
have found, doubtless, that your case lies much like the fat woman's; that
it is the show you give before the door that must determine what numbers
go within--that, to be plain with you, much thought must be given to the
taking of your title. It must be a most alluring trumpeting, above the din
of rival shows.

So I have named this article with thought of how I might stir your learned
curiosity. I have set scholars' words upon my platform, thereby to make
you think how prodigiously I have stuffed the matter in. And all this
while, my article has to do only with a certain set of Shakespeare in nine
calfskin volumes, edited by a man named John Bell, now long since dead,
which set happens to have stood for several years upon my shelves; also,
how it was disclosed to me that he was the worst of all editors, together
with the reasons thereto and his final acquittal from the charge.

John Bell has stood, for the most part, in